NetObjects Fusion (NOF) is a

web design Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; user interface design (UI design); authoring, including standardised code a ...

tool, from 1996 to 2001 developed and distributed by

NetObjects, Inc. NetObjects, Inc. is a software company founded in 1995 by Samir Arora, David Kleinberg, Clement Mok and Sal Arora. The company is best known for the development of NetObjects Fusion, a web design application for small and medium enterprises with ...

, marketed from 2001 until 2009 by

Web.com Web.com Group Inc. was an American company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida that provides domain name registration and web development services. Established in 1999 by Darin Brannan, the company was known as Website Pros Inc. until early 2 ...

(former called Website Pros), which acquired the

application Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a c ...

in 2001, and from July 2009 on distributed again by the re-established NetObjects, Inc. NetObjects Fusion has a

graphical user interface The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...

and generates

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

or (since release 11)

XHTML Extensible HyperText Markup Language (XHTML) is part of the family of XML markup languages. It mirrors or extends versions of the widely used HyperText Markup Language (HTML), the language in which Web pages are formulated. While HTML, prior ...

through its own

proprietary {{Short pages monitor ). The

visualization Visualization or visualisation may refer to: * Visualization (graphics), the physical or imagining creation of images, diagrams, or animations to communicate a message * Data visualization, the graphic representation of data * Information visualiz ...

technology of NetObjects Fusion has been patented. In a hierarchical tree structure, pages can be built and arranged. The folder structure on the web server can follow this layout or can vary – leaving the site structure only as a logical structure. In Page view, the

desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...

model is most obvious. The user operates with a draw-based layout editor very similar to

Desktop publishing Desktop publishing (DTP) is the creation of documents using page layout software on a personal ("desktop") computer. It was first used almost exclusively for print publications, but now it also assists in the creation of various forms of online ...

(DTP) or Computer-Aided Design (CAD) software. Toolbars offer text, image, table and other choices to design a page. Since version 8, basic bitmap editing capabilities are integrated in the image tool. All objects can be placed accurately with pixel-level control on the page, can be aligned or evenly distributed. With version 11, NetObjects Fusion moved along to

CSS Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone t ...

-based layout to enable pixel-level control of all objects on the page. According to the vendor, the code generation has been completely re-written to this end. Earlier versions generated complex hidden

tables Table may refer to: * Table (furniture), a piece of furniture with a flat surface and one or more legs * Table (landform), a flat area of land * Table (information), a data arrangement with rows and columns * Table (database), how the table data ...

and blind

GIF The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...

s for layout. The Team Fusion Client (coming with the NetObjects Authoring Server) had used CSS-driven layout at least since 1999. NetObjects Fusion release 11 still offers table-based layout as an option to maintain upwards compatibility to complex projects built with earlier versions. Page design is divided into an interior layout and an outside masterborder area. Masterborders allow designers to have exactly the same set of objects on a given number of pages. A tab on page view starts an integrated browser (

Microsoft Internet Explorer Internet Explorer (formerly Microsoft Internet Explorer and Windows Internet Explorer, commonly abbreviated IE or MSIE) is a series of graphical web browsers developed by Microsoft which was used in the Windows line of operating systems (in Wi ...

) to show an immediate preview without leaving NOF in Internet Explorer. Netobjects Fusion 11 can show a preview also with

Firefox Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and ...

up to 3.6. Style view offers pre-installed or online-offered sets of designs with banners, navigation bars, backgrounds, text styles and so on. Styles can also be completely user-defined and based on Cascading Style Sheets. Other views are Asset view, in which image and media files are managed; Publish view, which allows local previewing or remote publishing with a built-in

FTP The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...

module; and Online view, which has been added with NetObjects Fusion MX (6), to get access to third party modules, tutorials or customer support.

Strengths

The

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

of NetObjects Fusion has been praised as elegant and user-friendly by users and observers. The changed and extended interface of the versions since release 10 was reviewed less favourably. NetObjects Fusion proved to be flexible for small to medium-sized projects. For instance, novices are able to build a small site with styles that come with the product, and set up a simple online shop with the built-in

e-commerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the activity of electronically buying or selling of products on online services or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile commerce, electronic funds transfer, supply chain mana ...

engine. Experts can take advantage of NOF's layout capabilities and use it as a mere front-end to

PHP PHP is a General-purpose programming language, general-purpose scripting language geared toward web development. It was originally created by Danish-Canadian programmer Rasmus Lerdorf in 1993 and released in 1995. The PHP reference implementati ...

/ SQL database or advanced e-commerce solutions. According to Web.com, NOF 11 now allows to connect to any "commercially relevant databases". Third-party support was one of the highlights in earlier times, but seems to have been discouraged by

Website Pros Web.com Group Inc. was an American company headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida that provides domain name registration and web development services. Established in 1999 by Darin Brannan, the company was known as Website Pros Inc. until early ...

' policy to offer their own components. Many formerly popular components by third-party vendors like Coolmaps or Bitmotion have been discontinued or remain in the state of just maintaining compatibility to new versions of NetObjects Fusion without further development.

Limitations

Scalability Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system. In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that a company can increase sales given increased resources. For example, a ...

was a known problem of early versions of NetObjects Fusion. Depending on complexity and the user's working method, a single project might have reached its limits of performance and handling at a few pages. Bigger sites had to be broken into several projects causing increased management effort, especially for links and menus. Newer releases proved to be a little bit more robust. With release 11, relying on improved database connectivity and the ability to integrate XML-files into any objects on pages, scalability is not seen as an issue any more by the vendor. Though at least one user thinks otherwise. The limited access to

is seen as a critical flaw by many web developers. However, NetObjects Fusion was not designed to this end.

Latest developments: CSS, XHTML, nPower, Essentials

Since the acquisition of NetObjects Fusion, Website Pros kept a steady pace of new releases with enhanced functionalities. Engineering had been

outsourced Outsourcing is the practice of contracting a business function to a third party. Outsourced may also refer to: * ''Outsourced'' (album), a comedy album by Russell Peters * ''Outsourced'' (film) * ''Outsourced'' (TV series) {{disambig ...

Romania Romania ( ; ro, România ) is a country located at the crossroads of Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe. It borders Bulgaria to the south, Ukraine to the north, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Moldova to the east, a ...

. In 2008 Web.com "terminated the outsourced software development" and decided to "use existing in-house resources to assist with the future development" of NetObjects Fusion. Beginning with version 10, NetObjects Fusion improved compliance with modern web standards. NOF 10 (2006) came with full

W3C The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. Founded in 1994 and led by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations that maintain full-time staff working t ...

and

2.1 compliance and with a major overhaul of the user interface. However, CSS could be applied to text formatting only and page design stayed table-based. Release 11 (2008) offered CSS-positioned layout and publishing with

1.0 compliance. Enabling typical Web 2.0 sites, a collection of

AJAX Ajax may refer to: Greek mythology and tragedy * Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea * Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris * ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Gree ...

widgets like accordions and tagged panels have also been introduced with release 11. Starting with release 9, Website Pros also distributed "NetObjects nPower", a collaborative

content management Content management (CM) is a set of processes and technologies that supports the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. When stored and accessed via computers, this information may be more specifically referre ...

solution, to use with NetObjects Fusion. The development of nPower was stopped after the two releases for NetObjects 9 and 10. In November 2007, the basic version NetObjects Fusion Essentials was introduced for free download. Essentials is identical with NOF release 7.5. In July 2009, NetObjects, Inc. was re-established as an independent company. It acquired all NOF-related assets from Web.com. for approximately $4.0 million and released version 12 on December 31, 2010.

Support

Support is granted by an active user community in

newsgroup A Usenet newsgroup is a repository usually within the Usenet system, for messages posted from users in different locations using the Internet. They are discussion groups and are not devoted to publishing news. Newsgroups are technically distin ...

s. Some web sites lik
gotFusionBeyond FusionGerman Forum / NOF CommunityGerman Forum / NOF Schule
o
NOF-Club (Germany)
offer third-party support. The publication of books covering NetObjects Fusion has decreased with shrinking market share. In January 2009,

McGraw-Hill McGraw Hill is an American educational publishing company and one of the "big three" educational publishers that publishes educational content, software, and services for pre-K through postgraduate education. The company also publishes referen ...

published ''NetObjects Fusion 11'' in their "How to Do Everything" series. NetObjects Fusion 2015 appears to be the final release and some users have reported problems running it under Windows 10.

Versions

All versions have been released in English and German. The given release year is for the English versions. * NetObjects Fusion 1 (1996) (Windows/Mac) * NetObjects Fusion 2 (1997) (Windows/Mac) * NetObjects Fusion 3 (1998) (Windows/Mac) * NetObjects Fusion 4 (1999) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion 5 (2000) (Windows
Review
* NetObjects Fusion MX (2001) (Windows
Review
* NetObjects Fusion 7 (2002) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion 7.5 (2003) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion 8 (2004) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion 9 (2005) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion 10 (2006) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion 11 (2008) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion XII (2010) (Windows
Review
* NetObjects Fusion 2013 (2013) (Windows) * NetObjects Fusion 2015 (2015) (Windows)

References

Sources and links

* http://netobjects.com (Product homepage) * Webster, Timothy (1996). ''NetObjects Fusion Handbook''. Indianapolis: Hayden Books. . * Gassaway, Stella (1997). ''Killer Web Design: NetObjects Fusion''. Foreword by

Clement Mok Clement Mok (born 1958) is a graphic designer and author. Mok founded several design-related businesses — Studio Archetype (acquired by Sapient), CMCD and NetObjects, Inc. In 1997, Mok helped to launch the advertising campaign called "Th ...

. Indianapolis: Hayden Books. . * NetObjects (2005). ''NetObjects Fusion 9 User Manual''. Website Pros, Inc. ASIN B000FDVK9C. * Plotkin, David (2009). ''NetObjects Fusion 11. How to Do Everything.''. New York:

. . {{HTML editors HTML editors 1996 software Web.com